


come on baby, let's do the twist!

by renaissance



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: 1960s, Bad Decisions, Based on a Tumblr Post, F/M, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-11-02 04:48:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10937322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renaissance/pseuds/renaissance
Summary: The year is 1964, the Winter Olympics are in full swing, and Yakov is determined to win gold and be himself—and, of course, show his beautiful and perfect girlfriend Lilia how much he loves her.





	come on baby, let's do the twist!

**Author's Note:**

> many thanks to lavenderprose for very kindly allowing me to write a fic based on her headcanon, as outlined in [this post](http://lavenderprose.tumblr.com/post/159760655734/someone-give-me-seventeen-year-old-yakov-feltsman)!
> 
> warnings: this contains some fairly mild sexual references.

Anxiety is unbecoming for a performer—someone said that to Yakov once, and it’s stuck with him ever since. In fact, he thinks it might have been Lilia, when they were fooling around in the back of his dad’s M-407 last week, parked out back of the rink after hours.

He had been airing his concerns about his free skate—technically perfect, but lacking in a certain _flair_ —and Lilia had taken her hand out of his trousers and smacked him upside the head, which Yakov thought was passingly unfair, because she had two hands.

“Anxiety is unbecoming for a performer,” she’d said, or something along those lines. “If you think it’s bad, fix it. If there’s nothing wrong with it, then stop fucking worrying!”

“Easy for you to say,” he’d told her, because Lilia was already the prima ballerina of the Mariinsky, and she’s moving to Moscow in a few months to take up the same role with the Bolshoi, so she’s got her life well and truly sorted, meanwhile Yakov is still getting yelled at by his coach Mariya for doing toe loops where she thinks plain old loops would be better.

Well, no longer. No longer are Yakov’s choices going to be second-guessed, least of all by his coach—he is going to skate this routine with the confidence it deserves, and bring home the gold.

“ _That’s_ what you’re wearing?”

Mariya sees his costume for the first time on the morning of the free skate. He thinks it’s quite unreasonable for her to be upset, given that he’s already in first place after the compulsory figures, and that he’s the best male figure skater the USSR has seen in years, but he entertains her concerns nonetheless.

“Why,” he says, “what’s wrong with it?”

“What’s _wrong_ with it?” Mariya looks ready to burst. “Feltsman, I made an exception for your music. I will _not_ tolerate this Western nonsense in your clothing too.”

Mariya is very old-fashioned; bell-bottoms aren’t solely the province of Westerners anymore, and neither are the Beatles and the Stones and the venerable Chubby Checker. At least unofficially—music has a way of making itself known, especially to well-travelled twenty-year-olds like Yakov, spending his school years back and forth between Saint Petersburg and Tel Aviv. He’s quite certain Mariya is three times his age at _least_ and has never left the rink, let alone the republic, except for the Olympics, so what would she know about anything? The idea of being so old and out of touch terrifies him.

“It’s too late to change it now,” he says sensibly, “given that I have to be on the ice in an hour.”

“You appall me,” Mariya says.

Yakov doesn’t think there’s anything appalling about it, and maybe Mariya should get with the program. His orange corduroy bell-bottoms are not only hip but easy to move in, and his tan peasant shirt is light and perfectly aerodynamic. For effect, he has an old paisley-patterned tie knotted around his head. He looks incredible. If only Lilia could see him now—maybe then she’d finally let him go down on her.

“You shouldn’t worry so much,” Yakov says.

Maybe he’s too flippant, because Mariya levels him with her most ferocious glare yet. “Yakov, I will give you this one performance. If the FFKK hasn’t kicked you out by then, and if you pull this off, you can keep the stupid outfit for your next performance.”

“Thank you,” Yakov says.

He hopes he sounds sincere, because really he’s just impatient, itching to get on the ice and prove himself. No anxiety, no nerves. That’s his new thing. He knows Lilia will be watching. He can’t wait to show off—to show her that he’s skating for her.

It’s a torturous wait until it’s Yakov’s turn to compete. He suffers through a dead boring performance by the American skater—it’s right before Yakov is to go on, and the dull classical piece does nothing to still his fidgety anticipation. Mariya isn’t talking to him. He doesn’t think he’s done anything to deserve that, avant-garde outfit or otherwise.

And then, at last—

“Next up, we have Yakov Feltsman, representing the USSR.” The announcer’s voice rings out across the auditorium, and Yakov’s German is just good enough to pick it up despite the Austrian accent. “He will be skating to… _The Twist_?”

 _That’s right_ , Yakov thinks. This is his moment. He whispers to himself in English, “Come on baby.”

He skates out into the centre of the ice, and the music starts.

 

* * *

 

The world always looks brighter from the centre of a podium. This isn’t Yakov’s first gold medal, and he knows for certain it won’t be his last. This is just the beginning.

To his left, there’s the American, and the German to his right, but all eyes are on Yakov. There are flashbulbs going off and Yakov gives the crowd his most winning smile, the one that’s won him all his medals and his lovely Lilia’s heart. As soon as the medal ceremony is over, Mariya comes up to him and all but drags him away, her face an exercise in fury.

“You did well,” she says through gritted teeth. “Almost too—”

“Feltsman, is it?”

A journalist cuts in, speaking German. He’s with a television crew. Mariya gives them a look of pure violence, but the journalist keeps talking.

“We loved your free skate today,” he says, “and that’s a pretty impressive gold medal around your neck! Have you got any words for your fans?”

Yakov smiles easily at the camera. “Of course. I’d like to thank everyone who’s supported me, and to dedicate my performance today to the beautiful Lilia Baranovskaya, my girlfriend of three weeks.”

“Wow!” the journalist exclaims. “She must be one lucky girl! And will we see you perform this routine again at the World Championships in Dortmund?”

There’s a tense moment before Yakov answers. He looks to Mariya—her anger seems to have passed at last, and she gives him an exaggerated shrug as if to say, _What do I care anymore?_

“I will,” Yakov says. He improvises, even though he knows Mariya will yell at him for it: “And I’ll be adding another jump to it. That’s something for my fans to look forward to.”

 

* * *

 

Something else to look forward to: being back in Saint Petersburg, seeing Lilia again before she moves to Moscow. Yakov borrows his dad’s car to pick her up and buys her a bunch of roses. Maybe he’ll ask her to marry him. That would be the perfect surprise, on top of everything.

She’s waiting at the corner by her ballet studio. The moment Yakov pulls up by the curb, he knows something’s wrong.

He winds down the window. “Lilia?”

“Yakov.” Her lips are pursed. “You bought me flowers.”

“I did,” he says. “Do you not like them? I can buy you other flowers. I can—”

“Enough. I can’t talk for long. Say what you have to say, and then leave.”

Surely she doesn’t mean that. _Leave_? Why would Yakov leave? He’s only just got here.

He clears his throat. “Were you watching the Olympics?”

“Yes, I was,” Lilia says tersely.

“Well, darling? What did you think?”

In her anger, Lilia’s face contorts into something almost comical. “What did I _think_? Yakov, are you an idiot? What were you doing dedicating that dog’s breakfast of a routine to me?”

Yakov blinks. For a moment, he doesn’t know how to respond. Eventually, he stammers, “I won gold, Lilia! I thought it’d be romantic!”

“Romantic my arse,” Lilia says. “You made a fool of yourself! And skating to Western music—no-one will ever take you seriously now.”

This is happening all wrong. It was meant to be their big moment. “Are you breaking up with me?” Yakov asks stupidly.

“I wasn’t going to, but that’s a good idea,” Lilia says. “Anyway, I’ll be in Moscow from next week. You won’t miss me.”

No, of course Yakov won’t miss her. What was he thinking? They’ve only been dating for about a month now, and Yakov’s dad keeps asking when he’s going to bring home his girlfriend, who he thinks is a good Jewish girl—not that Yakov lied to give him that impression, or anything.

“Fine,” he says, scowling to match Lilia frown for frown. “Have a good rest of your life.”

 

* * *

 

As it happens, the rest of Lilia’s life _is_ pretty good, and Yakov’s too. They hook up a month later when she’s back in Saint Petersburg to visit family, and after a year of on-again-off-again, they’re engaged. Yakov uproots to Moscow, changes coaches, and it lasts fifteen years before he and Lilia are done with each other and Yakov finds himself moving back to Saint Petersburg. His only consolation is that his marriage lasts longer than his competitive figure skating career, so he feels like it’s been a good run.

And now, over forty years since their first disastrous break up, he is confident that the _Twist_ incident is far behind him, buried in the past.

Until Viktor approaches him with an idea for his next free skate.

“No,” Yakov says. “Absolutely not, Vitya.”

“How come?” Viktor whines. “I commissioned the music. I even designed this outfit myself!”

Yes, Yakov can see that much. The outfit looks like something out of an evidence locker for a crime of passion. It’s mostly straps, studs, and buckles, worked in black with hot pink accents. And the music isn’t much better—it’s some sort of pop song with lyrics in English, and although Yakov’s English isn’t as good as Viktor’s, he understands the gist of it well enough. To put it plainly: the song is about sex.

“There’s no doubt that you’ve… thought this through,” Yakov says, although he’s not sure _thought_ is ever a word that crosses Viktor’s mind, “but I am still your coach, and I can have some say in the matter.”

“Did your coach have any say in _this_?”

Before Yakov can so much as ask what _this_ is, Viktor opens up a picture on his phone, and holds it up for Yakov to see. There, plain as day, is a photo of twenty-year-old Yakov with a mop haircut, standing on the podium at the 1964 Winter Olympics, dressed in his bell-bottoms and peasant shirt, holding up his gold medal. His expression in the photo is scarily familiar, even though the Yakov in the mirror hasn’t looked like this for many a year. It’s only a moment later, when Yakov glances from the phone back to Viktor, that he works it out—twenty-year-old Yakov wears the same self-satisfied grin as twenty-year-old Viktor standing before him.

Yakov stares, dumbfounded. “Vitya, where did you find this? No, never mind that—if you think this will change my mind, you’re—”

“Come on, baby,” Viktor sings, “let’s do the twist!”

For a moment, Yakov is twenty again, making bad decisions despite everything Mariya tried to tell him, despite the consequences. He can’t know that in seven years time, he’ll be coaching two bickering teenagers, one who swears in interviews and the other who ruins their friendly rink relationship with the Saint Petersburg men’s ice hockey team, that Georgi will theme his entire season around his break-up, and that Viktor will skip the Grand Prix Series and relocate to Japan and pursue a crush on a man he’s only met once before. And with this blackmail material circulating, he won’t be able to refuse a single ridiculous thing they decide to do.

“Fine,” he says. “But if it goes down like a lead balloon, you only have yourself to blame. I’m speaking from experience when I tell you this—don’t say I didn’t tell you so.”

**Author's Note:**

> goes without saying but this fic is also the product of wikipedia's plentiful resources on historical figure skating events. it was a really fun challenge to write young yakov. basically i started with "well he obviously sees something of himself in viktor" and went from there. come say hi in the comments down below :)


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